Michals: Encouraging a movement to get kids to move

Published 7:09 pm, Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Kudos to Greenwich for being ahead of the curve on understanding the importance of providing high quality preschool for our children. As highlighted by the president in his State of the Union address, current research demonstrates that preschool is an essential investment in our children's development -- and a key component of a prosperous future for those kids.

Academic success is not the only reason for starting early, either. Greenwich Time recently carried a story about a large newly published study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that kids "weight fate" is set in the preschool years, the time when kids most need to get physical activity and nutritional patterns set. The preschool years thus are the window to intervene for both learning and anti-obesity goals.

The First Lady's Let's Move initiative has made a huge difference in awareness of the need for physical activity and good nutrition. So today everybody is talking about early learning and childhood obesity.

Why do preschool learning and physical activity matter together? Because young children learn naturally through movement and physical activity. By using physical activity as an element of teaching -- "active learning" -- we can change lives and address a range of issues through the early childhood arena that will pay dividends for communities and the country for years to come.

For too long, physical activity has been viewed as a break from learning -- a "recess." Kids need and respond to integrating short amounts of physical activity into the learning day, a technique proven to yield cognitive advances in young children. In this way, physicality and health become intertwined with and not separate from activities children want to do. Perhaps most importantly, good nutritional and health can also be optimally taught through active learning games too. Kids get fit while they learn about their bodies and how to take care of them.

Have you ever watched a 3- or 4-year-old child sit still for a long period of time? Probably not, and for a good reason. Young children need, want and love to move. Current brain research shows that children learn best and retain information through active involvement. Pairing a literacy or math lesson with a specifically related movement activity such as Math Orchestra hard-wires a child's ability to retain information by enhancing learning in both hemispheres of the brain. Fun physical activities can bring math and reading to life, making the concepts real and understandable to young children.

As a Greenwich mother of three school-aged kids, and as a movement and learning educator with many years of experience working with preschoolers, parents and teachers, I know first-hand that stimulating education for young children can make a positive learning impact for life. Greenwich has 11 pre-K classes in our public school programs, and more than 35 private preschool opportunities in the area. In our work with schools in Greenwich, both public and private, we have incorporated an active learning approach in preschool and the early grades because it works.

Together, efforts like those in place in our preschools provide a jumping off point and an example for the state and the country in meeting the goal of universal preschool. Let's move forward on the president's call for early education for every child -- starting with the important first step -- a national "movement."

Deborah Kayton Michals is the founder of Greenwich Dance Arts/ Learn With Action and author of "Up, Down, Move Around -- Active Learning for Preschoolers." She is a resident of Riverside and the mother of three children.